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I have a friend with an Ornate uro. She just lost her male to this--he went downhill FAST. She has the female in the same type of setup the male was in. She did not keep them together, and they were never in physical contact. She had her male into the vet (well known exotics vet, good vet) and he said it was 'age related, 2nd & 3rd degree burns'. Now the female has the same thing, and we don't think it's burns. She has an appt. to take the female in this week. This DOES seem painful to the touch for the uros. The male was the sweetest uro you could ever imagine (female is the opposite) but even the male would take a swing at her with his tail so she wouldn't mess with him, and I'd NEVER seen him do this before, even with me, who he didn't really know. The male was 8-10 years old I think.

Setup:
Vision cage, basking ~ 120, UVA/UVB light, and were outside at least once a week, usually both days on the weekends, and some during the week. Cages were cleaned daily/every other day as needed. Substrate: paper towels. She feeds greens with the Sandfire Superfoods powder, calcium powder, and vitiman powder on a rotational basis.

Here's the email she just sent me:
Symptoms:
Blood and puss underneith the skin.
When she moves the puss ruptures out of her skin.
Blisters and puss under the skin
Extremely sensitive to the touch.
Skin hardening to the touch almost like dehydrating from the inside out at a rapid pace.
Soaking-no help (maybe)
Antibiotics- little help maybe
Betadine-no help (maybe)
Cream that we used when we thought it was burns- (helped a bit)
The only thing that helped Narc a little bit was the injections of fluids that he received at the vet clinic but that was quite a bit.
I still couldn't get enough fluids down him to keep up with the dehydration.

Any help here is appreciated. We did look into blister disease, but that doesn't seem likely....

What were the temps/hides like on the cool end of the Visions? Were there hides available during their outside time? Were the greens washed and left moist before feeding? How close and which wattage was the bulb? Pictures might help others offer a suggested diagnosis. I don't think their age would have anything to do with the blistering but 10 years is a pretty long age in captivity.
HH
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1.1 U. Maliensis (Koopa,Zilla)
1.0 S. Hispidus (Bowser)

I'm not going to be much help here, but there is a thing called blister disease that's very, very nasty. I don't know if that's what she's dealing with, but it might be worth checking into. You might do some searches on that and see what comes up.

Any culturing done of the affected tissues? Was there a necropsy of the male?

Am I misunderstanding? What exactly are "age related" burns??
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Torey
Eugene, Oregon, USA
1.1 Saharan Uros (Joe and Arthur)
3.0 Mali Uros (Spike, Turtle, and Tank)
1.1 Ornate Uros (Scuttlebutt and Shazzbot)
0.1 Collared Lizard (Rorschach)
2.1 Green Anoles (Bowser, Sprocket, Leeloo)
1.1 Chubby Housecats (Roscolux and Jenny)

We originally researched blister disease, as we'd both heard of it before. Pretty sure that's not it.

The cool end of the cage is high 80's to low 90's. We've both been feeding the pre-washed organic mixed baby greens. Her Saharan(?) uro and my Egyptian are showing no signs of this. We did 'rewash' them for awhile, then decided not to, since they're supposedly washed three times before packing. We've been buying in bulk at Costco and splitting them, as she has a lot of dragons, and I have a couple of dragons as well. The cages have rocks for basking, roofing tiles (Arizona, tiles are common to use instead of shingles) and a Reyes(sp) stack in each cage. Hides are through out the cage. She feeds on small paper plates that are replaced each feeding, for sanitary and speed reasons. She uses chlorhexiderm (Nolvasan) for disinfecting the cages. The outside cages are screen, with hides in them as well. I don't think they're burns at this point. The distance from the bulbs is the standard for visions, no high basking spots in these cages. I'm pretty sure the bulbs were 75 or 100 watt, normal bulbs. She has a laser temp gun to check the temps with, and rechecks it every few days in all the cages.

I'll answer any other questions as I can. Will get the pics up tonight ASAP.

I'm going down tonight hopefully to see if we can get some good pics.

Thats blister disease, take her to the Vet.
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PHEve / Eve

Edited on June 2, 2007 at 17:34:22 by PHWyvern.

>>Thats blister disease, take her to the Vet.
>>-----
>>PHEve / Eve
>>
>>Contact PHEve

The vet is closed tomorrow, will keeping her hydrated and getting her in Thurs/Fri be ok, or should I try to get her in to another exotics vet tomorrow?

What would cause blister disease? Everything I saw said it was mainly caused by unsanitary conditions, and that's not the case here at all....

I would do it as soon as possible with whoever I could see.

There is another good buddy of ours on here, "Artgeckko" or Ed, posted down the page, try and email him or give him a major holler, his egyptians had it a couple years ago, he could tell you much more. I know he went through hell/ but not as much hell as the lizards.

He also said his enclosures were kept clean. But they all have bacteria, we can clean them, and there may be bacteria from when they go, and then maybe infect a small opening or cut or jsut get under a scale, and spread infection, I'm not sure, but heck we clean ourselves and can still get infections. ???? who knows, don't dwell on that part now, just getting her fixed. Get her to the vet, tell him of blister disease (incase they do not know) This can turn into blood poisoning.

But try and talk with Artgeckko also.
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PHEve / Eve

Contact PHEve

I called my friend after you posted, and told her we need to get her in ASAP, and that I would not take her back to the vet she took her male in to see. She knows of another exotics vet that she's been to and likes as well, so she's going to try and get in on an emergency appointment tomorrow. Until I hear from her, I'll do my best to keep the uro hydrated though. From reading back some posts in the past couple of years, extra moisture can possibly cause blister disease, and her 'reptile room' is a bit humid, for Arizona standards at least. She has a couple of frilled dragons, so their cages contribute to the humidity, and all of the heat lamps keep it pretty warm in there. I just hope we're in time to save this girl! Thanks for the help!

The vet said it's not blister disease, though it does look similar. He said it's a fungal infection. He put her on baytril, and is calling in a prescription to a compounding pharmacy, that her owner will pick up and bring to me. Need to keep getting fluids and food down her and hope the meds work. I'll keep everyone updated. Thanks for the help!!

I'm certainly not an expert nor do I claim to be smarter than your vet, but I want to learn...

Baytril is an antibiotic. I think it will do little to clear up a fungal disease. Is the Baytril specifically to help clearup/prevent any secondary health problems that may show up as a result of the fungus?

>>I'm certainly not an expert nor do I claim to be smarter than your vet, but I want to learn...
>>
>>Baytril is an antibiotic. I think it will do little to clear up a fungal disease. Is the Baytril specifically to help clearup/prevent any secondary health problems that may show up as a result of the fungus?

Yep, sorry should have posted that as well, hurts to type a bit, had to break up a dogfight this morning and got a finger in the way...

She does have a secondary infection. If you look at the pics below, it shows some bloody areas and red spots--those are infection signs...not sure what caused that either....

By the way, best of luck with the treatment.
Keep us posted on the health progress...

>>By the way, best of luck with the treatment.
>>Keep us posted on the health progress...

Thanks. According to the vet, we're going to need it. She's in pretty bad shape, but she's a fighter. Got a LOT of pedialyte down her today and she was eating on her own, so that's a good sign, going to keep the pedialyte up for a couple of weeks to help rehydrate her, that will help a lot. The prescription he called into the compounding pharmacy wasn't ready this afternoon when her mom got off work, so she's going to pick it up tomorrow and bring it out to me. Hopefully once we start that treatment we'll see some real improvement.

In addition to the physical exam, I would hope that the vet started a culture to validate his visual diagnosis. I suppose the yellowish/beige growth is what led the vet to his diagnosis. I just hope that at the very least, he did a scraping and looked at the findings under a microscope.

I am assuming that the vet prescribed a topical fungal medication?

Did he say whether he thought that this was something like a yeast or mention terms like ‘yellow fungus disease’? I highly doubt that he would diagnose something specific like Chrysosporium anamorph of Nannizziopsis vriesii without diagnostics but if a funky name like this was mentioned or provided on the diagnostic take home sheet, I would be interested in this. I would be REALLY interested in any culture or other diagnostic findings.

I am a little curious on a few things. Could you ask your friend if she soaked her uromastyx prior to noticing this condition and if so, how often? When she first noticed the condition, was it simply a yellowish/beige growth and the red appeared later? If so, did the red appear after your friend started soaking or soaking more often? Do you know if your friend keeps (or has kept) a water dish in the enclosure? Has your friend owned these animals for a long period of time?

Did the vet suggest your friend discontinue the use of the products she is using that contain yeast? There has been some speculation in the past that the use of yeast in the diet of these animals (yes, even the friendly ones like Saccharomyces cerevisiae ) can lead to some adverse health conditions. I have not found reliable evidence of this in uromastyx but due to the possibility that exists and the lack of necessity of yeast in the diet, I would probably error on the side of caution and discontinue the use of these products for the time being.

I think that we need to be careful when we discuss terms like blister disease as the name has almost become generic for any condition that forms blisters. While some feel the name is linked to a particular disease process in uromastyx, unless we have the etiology worked out and a specific organism has been determined as the causative agent in this specific disease process, the term “blister disease” is more likely a name for multiple conditions rather than one specific organism/disease. In other words, blisters might result on a uromastyx due to a bacterium, fungus, or virus and all of these blisters may look similar, weep, from a yellow/red/brown crust over the skin, result in hardened or necrotic skin…ect. The only thing we know without diagnostic testing is that the animal has blisters not necessarily that it has blister disease- unless of course we want to use the term generically which I think many of us do.

The culture was declined. Money is super tight for them right now. If she isn't getting better in a week or so, we'll reconsider (I'll see if she'll let me help pay, even though money is tight here too).

I'm not sure what the meds she's picking up today from the compounding pharmacy will be. I'm assuming topical as well though,

No 'funky' names given. He was going to call her with more specifics, as it's her lizard and he knows her. I'm just the caregiver for a couple of weeks, mainly b/c I have a place to keep her seperate from my critters more easily than she does.

She does not soak her uros often. The only time I saw them near water is if they had 'played' in their poo, and she was washing them off, and she use a cloth on their tails, rarely had the tails in the water, and she always dries them thoroughly.

With the male, the blisters appeared first, over his back mainly. He'd been in his outside cage, and we thought it was related to that. Then the skin started to harden and turn yellow, and then the red streaks appeared. Same for the female, but the only blisters she had were under her back legs. She's had them for well over five years I know. Not sure exact amount of time.

She uses the sandfire superfood uro dust, and that's the only thing she uses that contains yeast. As I said though, he's calling her to discuss this a bit more in detail. She'll let me know if I need to change anything I'm doing here.

As for it being blister disease, we didn't think it was until people on here said it def. was. It's super hard to find pics though, so we didn't know. The vet (Dr. Funk, Mesa, AZ) was very definite it is NOT blister disease though.

With diagnostic tests declined, the vet did the best thing he could do- used his medical experience and expertise to give his best guess as to what your friend is dealing with.

The good thing here is that Dr Funk (the term ‘funky’ was pure coincidence) is well respected in herp medicine so his best guess is probably better than 99% of the other guesses your friend might have received from other veterinarians. Ok, maybe this is a slight exaggeration but if I were going to skip diagnostic tests and go with a diagnosis based purely on a physical exam, this is one of the few veterinarians that I would want doing the guessing.

>>With diagnostic tests declined, the vet did the best thing he could do- used his medical experience and expertise to give his best guess as to what your friend is dealing with.
>>
>>The good thing here is that Dr Funk (the term ‘funky’ was pure coincidence) is well respected in herp medicine so his best guess is probably better than 99% of the other guesses your friend might have received from other veterinarians. Ok, maybe this is a slight exaggeration but if I were going to skip diagnostic tests and go with a diagnosis based purely on a physical exam, this is one of the few veterinarians that I would want doing the guessing.
>>

That's why we decided to go to Dr. Funk. She had taken the male to Dr. Driggers and he mis-diagnosed. She was going to take the female back to Driggers since he knew the history of the male, but thankfully his office is closed Wednesdays so I talked her into canceling that appointment and going to Dr. Funk instead. She's been to him with other animals before and really likes him, and he knows she takes great care of her animals. If money wasn't so tight for them right now, she would have gotten the scrape/culture done in a heartbeat. It seems like everytime money issues crop up, everything else goes wrong that needs money!!

You said..."She's had them for well over five years I know"...do you mean the owner had the uro for over 5 years of the blisters? I have never heard of CANV taking 5 years to kill a reptile.

>>You said..."She's had them for well over five years I know"...do you mean the owner had the uro for over 5 years of the blisters? I have never heard of CANV taking 5 years to kill a reptile.

The owner has had them for over 5 years. This female is around 9, the male was around the same age. From the time the blisters were first noticed on the male, until he died was right around a month. I was down at her house on a Saturday, helped her pull the guys (dragons and uros) back inside from a day of basking, and the male was fine. He was such a sweetie, I always held him for a few minutes. When she pulled them in the next day (didn't notice anything that morning even) he had blisters all over his back. He went downhill in a hurry from there.

Hey Sorry I spoke out and said Blister Disease.

I have just heard people talk of it and a couple right here on the forum, so when I heard you explainging how the male died and then you showed the pics, it sure sounded, and looked like what was described by others as blister disease.

But as Debbs said, seems fungal and /bacterial infections ... are all being called blister disease. I have been reading up on them.

In any case, I sure wish you all the best in getting that girl well again , let us know how she does.!
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PHEve / Eve

Edited on June 2, 2007 at 17:34:38 by PHWyvern.

>>Hey Sorry I spoke out and said Blister Disease.
>>
>> I have just heard people talk of it and a couple right here on the forum, so when I heard you explainging how the male died and then you showed the pics, it sure sounded, and looked like what was described by others as blister disease.
>>
>> But as Debbs said, seems fungal and /bacterial infections ... are all being called blister disease. I have been reading up on them.
>>
>>In any case, I sure wish you all the best in getting that girl well again , let us know how she does.!
>>-----
>>PHEve / Eve
>>
>>Contact PHEve

Not a problem! It scared me enough to call Rita and tell her we needed to bump the appointment up, and to a different vet in a hurry! So far, she's holding steady. Not really any better, but not really any worse, which is good for now. I'm giving her Pedialyte twice a day, and she's munching on her green some, so that's good. And she still has her nasty, hissy, biting if possible attitude, so that's still good! Thankfully, both meds are fruit flavored, so she takes them well!!

>>With diagnostic tests declined, the vet did the best thing he could do- used his medical experience and expertise to give his best guess as to what your friend is dealing with.
>>
>>The good thing here is that Dr Funk (the term ‘funky’ was pure coincidence) is well respected in herp medicine so his best guess is probably better than 99% of the other guesses your friend might have received from other veterinarians. Ok, maybe this is a slight exaggeration but if I were going to skip diagnostic tests and go with a diagnosis based purely on a physical exam, this is one of the few veterinarians that I would want doing the guessing.
>>

Out of curiosity, are you in the Phoenix area? Just wondering since you've heard of Dr. Funk...

I do not live in Arizona. Dr Funk has a reputation in herp medicine so I am sure that quite a few people outside the state of Arizona have heard of him. Anyone that owns the new edition of Reptile Medicine and Surgery by Dr Mader are likely familiar with his name just due to the numerous contributions he made to this excellent book.

I haven't gotten through all the posts on this so maybe you've already answered this but - what compound is Dr Funk prescribing for this?
From the photos and your description there are two problems going on at the same time. The Red streaks indicate septicemia which is the biggest concern for her health in the short term. This is what usually kills the Uro in most skin related illnesses. It's usually a bacterial infection when it looks like this so hopefully the Baytril is limiting that problem. That's probably a secondary infection due to the damaged skin letting in opportunistic bacteria. You need to limit further access by applying a barrier. Ask Dr. Funk to prescribe Silvadine cream for you to apply over the damaged tissue. It will help limit dehydration though the damaged skin plus limit further bacterial access to the underlying tissues (it's commonly used for burn victims for those very reasons).

The thickening you're seeing in the skin isn't dehydration per se but mineralization (though in the process the area does loose most its water). Uros often mineralize damaged skin tissue to help wall off infections - the problem with this is the skin now becomes brittle and cracks allowing external bacteria, etc. access to the underling tissues. It also allows much greater water loss which can be a significant problem.

Is the compound you're waiting on oral or topical? Oral anti-fungals are very toxic so be very very careful to keep her well hydrated. If it's topical, you may want Dr Funk to do a cloacal scaping to make sure the infection is not also in the colon. He should be able to look at it under the scope to see if the area is clean. Yeast in particular tend to like to spread to that area and yeast are more common as pathogens that fungi.

One last note, I understand completely having tight funds, but doing a culture usually saves you money in the long run, especially if you do a culture and sensitivity test. That way you will know for sure what she has and what antibiotics work best against it. Otherwise you may waste time and money taking shots in the dark, especially when dealing with mixed infections like this. Also antibiotics in general tend to increase the risk of fungal/yeast infections so you don't want to spend a lot of time trialing various antibacterial compounds while trying to fight a fungal infection. The longer she is on antibacterials, the greater the risk the fungal infection will entrench itself.

Tell Dr Funk I said hi!

Good luck,

Doug

Oh - one thing I forgot - in the first post you mention "age related burns". I have no clue what this refers to??? Was it a typo?

Thanks,

Doug

This girl has gone downhill overnight. I have her at my house now to get as many fluids as I can down her. Her skin is very hard to the touch, even her 'jowls' under her chin are rock hard.

My friend said it feels to her almost like she's drying up from the inside out, her skin is 'stuck' to her insides, her skin isn't loose at all, just stuck hard.

Some of these pics show some 'blood' streaks that are under her skin, mainly in her tail region. The male had blisters over his body, upper body on his back. The female here only had them under her back legs.

n/p

I haven't followed your post as I've been really busy
with breeding/laying/cages etc.

May I suggest that if you haven't already, put her on paper
in a fresh/clean cage and keep it as clean as possible.

Until your appointment, give her a betadine dine/water
solution spray down (mixed to about the color of light tea).
Soon after dab her dry with a soft towel then apply a good
topical cream to the affected areas. If you have no antibiotic
cream on stock for your reptiles then you can use neosporin
cream for now. The triple antibiotic would be best.

Do not treat the uro the day of your appointment as they may
need to do a skin scraping for tests and the residue form the
betadine or cream may contaminate their findings.

This disease is an air born virus and can quickly be passed to
a cage mate or even to one in a cage near by. Not washing
your hands before handling another (for example) could help
spread this virus as well.

I agree with Eve, the vet visit sooner than later is in good order.

John

>>I haven't followed your post as I've been really busy
>>with breeding/laying/cages etc.
>>
>>May I suggest that if you haven't already, put her on paper
>>in a fresh/clean cage and keep it as clean as possible.
>>
>>Until your appointment, give her a betadine dine/water
>>solution spray down (mixed to about the color of light tea).
>>Soon after dab her dry with a soft towel then apply a good
>>topical cream to the affected areas. If you have no antibiotic
>>cream on stock for your reptiles then you can use neosporin
>>cream for now. The triple antibiotic would be best.
>>
>>Do not treat the uro the day of your appointment as they may
>>need to do a skin scraping for tests and the residue form the
>>betadine or cream may contaminate their findings.
>>
>>This disease is an air born virus and can quickly be passed to
>>a cage mate or even to one in a cage near by. Not washing
>>your hands before handling another (for example) could help
>>spread this virus as well.
>>
>>I agree with Eve, the vet visit sooner than later is in good order.
>>
>>John

The cage is kept clean, she's on papertowels. She's going into a different vet than the male went to today, 11:30 Arizona time.

HOW easily passed is this disease? I have her at my house now to get fluids down her daily, and keep a better eye on her, since her owner works. She's in a seperate room from my critters, so with the A/C unit going, could they get it--airborne wise? I wash my hands super well, and use anti-bacterial gel after handling her, and my other reptiles.....any other precautions I should take?

Hi Jenn,
I think as long as she's in a separate room then your other
critters will be fine. I wouldn't worry too much about the A/C
as most air born viruses are short lived.

The safety basics which you seem to be doing are a plus
(ie, keeping the door closed, not sharing food dishes, wearing
surgical gloves when handling her are all good ideas). You might
ask the vet for a couple of pairs of gloves since they're likely going to charge you an arm and leg .. not to mention the hands you'll need the gloves for.

Ok, I'm off to feed my zoo.

Good luck with her and have a good vet visit.

John

Sadly, Keara passed away this afternoon. Overnight, she went downhill super-fast. I checked on her first thing this morning, and she was very dehydrated, even with getting 8 cc's of pedialyte twice daily for over a week. I got as much in her today as I could, and it didn't help any, she wasn't breathing earlier this afternoon when I went back in to check on her.

I am very sorry for your loss. You tried your best to save her, but sometimes no matter what you do it isn't enough. I hope you may get another uro some day in the future. Best regards.

Pam
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1.1 varanus acanthurus brachyurus (Dorado & Dora)
1.1 u. macfadyeni (Amani & Abeba)
1.2 u. ornata (Husani, Zari, & Bintu)
0.0.1 geochelone carbonaria (Rojo)
0.0.1 cyclura hybrid lewisi x caymanensis x nubila (Sweetpea)
1.1 hyla chrysoscelis (Pudge & Squirt)
Herps Are Awesome!

Thanks for the kind words, even though she wasn't mine, I'm pretty upset. Even Friday, she still looked good, just overnight, she crashed.

Rita has another uro, a little saharan, and I have an egyptian, plus we both have other critters to focus on now. We'll both be keeping a super close eye on our uros, just in case this was very contagious. So far, both of them are still fine, and showing no signs of illness. If any of our critters even look like they *think* they're getting sick, they're off to the vet in a hurry!! We both took extra precautions with washing hands, and trying to handle Keara last in line for feeding and such, to keep our others safe, hopefully it worked! I don't want to go through this again!!